


Growing Pains

by Warpony



Series: Feral Echoes [32]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Brothers, Echo Knight - Freeform, Family Drama, M/M, making a stand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27071734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warpony/pseuds/Warpony
Summary: There was a clearing of a throat that was unmistakable despite the distance from the bridge to the front door. Verin flinched, took a breath to steel himself before plastering on his very best smile and looking down towards the elegant drow woman below. "Umavi Deirta! What a plesant surprise! I'll be right down in just a moment!"He couldn't see it from here but Verin couldfeelhis mother's eyes narrow at him...
Relationships: Verin Thelyss/Original Character(s)
Series: Feral Echoes [32]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711534
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	Growing Pains

Verin balanced the stack of papers and books in his arms, waiting for Essek to close the door to his laboratory before heading across the bridge to the main structure of three towers. 

The two brothers had agreed that staying and working in the Xhorhaus had felt to eerie and empty. Essek's towers weren't exactly as warm or inviting, though it seemed the Dunamantic mage had been making an effort to make it more comfortable, but it was better than working in the unsettling quiet of the Xhorhaus while their friends were gone. 

"You sure we can't use the lab-"

"Verin, you cannot keep your hands to yourself." Essek sighed with a slightly fond smile. "I don't want to spent the rest of the night trying to _Dispell_ and untangle whatever you might accidentally create or do to yourself any time I turn my back or leave to get something to drink." 

The Echo Knight huffed. "I'm not _hopeless_ , Essek."

He trailed off, looking over the side of the bridge as they walked and nearly stumbling as he spotted a terrifyingly familiar figure below, walking up to Essek's front door. 

"Essek. _Essek_. Where's the back door we have to-"

A soft pop and the twisting of displaced air and space next to him made Verin's gut drop as he whipped around. Essek was gone. Teleported away or flown or who knew what to where but he'd disappeared, left Verin alone on the bridge. 

"Oh you traitorous bastard." Verin hissed, glaring around. "Essek, I swear you're going to pay for this." 

There was a clearing of a throat that was unmistakable despite the distance from the bridge to the front door. Verin flinched, took a breath to steel himself before plastering on his very best smile and looking down towards the elegant drow woman below. "Umavi Deirta! What a plesant surprise! I'll be right down in just a moment!"

He couldn't see it from here but Verin could _feel_ his mother's eyes narrow at him as he hurried the rest of the way across the bridge into the tower. 

He took the few minutes to swiftly hide their research, straighten himself up which was no easy task considering he had taken up wearing one of Brunnera's sweaters and he very much looked like a child in adult's clothing, and to use every curse in Common, Abyssal and Undercommon that he knew to insult his brother before heading for the door to open it and let his mother in. 

Umavi Deirta Thelyss was every inch as tall and elegant as the Bright Queen was but with a distance and harshness to her that left her cold. Her icy blue eyes missed nothing and the careful way she held herself and was swathed in elegant, flowing robes and a wrought mantle of fine silver, obsidian and amethyst that was a more feminine version of what Essek had once worn across his shoulders. Deirta's silvery hair was braided up intricately with polished beads of obsidian, amethyst and rare pearls just for a bit more of a show for how well off she and the den around her was. 

Verin hid a face he made at looking at her outfit. It was the attire meant to intimidate and impress at the Lucid Bastion and courtly affairs. Not an unannounced visit to her sons. 

He swiftly shut the door behind her and moved just off to her periphery and snapped into a perfect parade rest position. It was hardly an impressive display with the way the soft blue knitted fabric of Brunnera's sweater fell off one shoulder and hung midway down his thighs.

"Mot... Umavi. What do I owe this visit to?" He asked, keeping his voice calm and without inflection. 

"I would be delighted to be able to ask you the same, Verin, but it has come to my attention that you have _retired_. I expect lazing around your brother's towers has become a kind of past time for you and that your presence in Rosohna could hardly be called a visit." Deirta all but hissed. Verin's jaw ticked a bit. If she allowed that much emotion into her voice then she was certainly angry. 

"Took a bit longer for word to get around to you Umavi but yes, it's true. Would you care for a drink? Tea? Wine?" Verin was already moving, turning his back on her and creating some distance as swiftly as he was able. 

"Where is your brother?" 

"The Shadowhand had some business to attend to at the Bastion." Verin shrugged, despite his abandonment he would not sell out Essek. Especially not to Deirta. He stepped passed the small open foyer that Essek used to entertain, right passed the shelves of bottles of liquor and went straight into the kitchen. He briefly held the door for her but when Deirta didn't immediately come through he let it close behind him. 

Verin knew he was acting like a belligerent youth but there was no question that this was both going to be a dressing down and an attempt at bullying him. So belligerence it was. With his evident retirement starting to become public knowledge there was little Deirta could do to him. 

Bazzoxan was in the control of trusted commanders that Verin had all but raised himself. None of whom were Den Thelyss and the practices he had put into action at the Umbra Gates over the last five decades were well entrenched as a part of the outpost's culture and expectations. Not even needling from outside influences would do much to unsettle it at this point. 

No one had command over him save for Quana and Leylas Kryn, his "retired" status taking him out of the direct chain of command of the military unless called upon in emergency. 

The only standing offer of any kind of position he currently had was from Quana Kryn herself and it was to take over as the second highest power in the entire Dynasty below the Bright Queen herself. 

The people he most cared about were a troupe of mercenaries that quite literally answered to no one other than each other. And of course Essek. He was the most susceptible to Deirta's wrath but she wouldn't dare sabotage Essek with how carefully placed he was in the Bright Queen's court. 

It struck Verin quite suddenly that for the first time in his life his mother could do next to nothing to him and what little she could do certainly would do him no harm at all. Disownment from Den Thelyss honestly sounded more like a relief than a punishment. 

The whole rush of it left the Echo Knight a little light headed and giddy. He couldn't help a brief secret smile to himself as he filled two glasses with rich, plum wine. He turned half expecting for Deirta to have followed him into the kitchen. No such luck. Steeling himself Verin carried the glasses back out to the small foyer and set one of the wine glasses down on the table set to the side of the space. 

Deirta still stood ramrod straight in the center of the room, commanding the space as only she could. Verin made a short wave to the glass before helping himself to a sip of his own. 

"How unsurprising it is to find you so casual about fittering away your career." Deirta said coolly, folding her hands in front of herself, leaving the wine untouched. "Just in the moments you managed to somehow gain a respectable rank and notoriety despite your lack of ambition."

"What a terrible heartbreak it must have been when the news reached you, Umavi." Verin hummed with a shake of his head. 

Deirta's eyes narrowed sharply. "And what do you intended to do with your new found leisure time, Verin? Loiter around your brother's tower?"

"It's been going pretty well so far," Verin shrugged. "Saves him the trouble of a personal assistant."

The Umavi couldn't help the indigent scoff that twisted nastily up out of her throat. Verin hid another slight smile to himself. It was a bit of cruel fun to wind his mother up like this but he'd much rather have her say her piece and leave than get stuck entertaining her longer than necessary. 

"Umavi have you come calling for a specific reason? Is there something I can help you with?" Verin prompted. 

"Yes. I came to see what you intended to do with yourself. How you intended to continue your contribution to the den with your abandonment of our people-"

"I did not _abandon_ our people. If you haven't noticed, _Mother_ I've spent the majority of my life serving the Dynasty. At the Umbra Gates. At the front. I have been in service of the Aurora Watch for nearly a century. The Taskhand of Bazzoxan for nearly half that. The youngest to ever hold the position mind you. I have done this all without asking for favor or neoptism of either you or the den. I have not shirked a single day in one hundred year. We are at _peace_. I am _tired_. So I have been granted a sabbatical, a reward for my loyalty and well done work."

It was the most honest and blunt Verin had ever been with Deirta. It was giving up a great deal of information that he wouldn't otherwise but it was guiding her away from other information. Like hell he was going to give the details of his promise to return if needed. That he was still working in tandem with the Watch still in Bazzoxan as a Taskhand in all but name. That he was considered one of the leading strategic and training masters in the Dynasty and was steadily changing and upgrading how future soldiers of the Aurora Watch would be trained at the Nimbus Keep in Rosohna before deploying to all points of Xhorhas. That he was helping Essek build a plan to explore deeper into points of the Wastes that suggested they were sites of Age of Arcanum interest. 

That he was still exhausted because his 'retirement' was anything but. 

But... 

There was a joy to it now. A kind of freedom he hadn't had or pursued before. It felt more of his own choice now than the demand and expectations that had been laid on him by the den and Deirta. It was more of doing what felt right for himself and those that trusted him than trying to accomplish something to please his distant mother. 

"I would ask what it is that you want of me, Umavi. But I know very well the things you want of me, you have never made them a secret. Almost as much as I now know how impossible those things are for me to give to you." Verin sighed honestly, some deep seeded ache and regret managing to bleed up into his tone. 

"Its a wonder to me that you survived the Umbra Gates with such a mindset." Deirta's head tilted up to look down her nose a bit at him. "Though perhaps such a disgustingly defeatist attitude did not rear itself in you until you started associating with that animal-"

"Oh. Fuck you. Get out." Verin ordered with bitterness and long suffering exhaustion flooding his voice. He set down his wine glass a bit roughly and started towards her. 

Deirta's eyes widened. "Exc-"

"No. _Get out_. I was this close but _gods_." Verin shook his head, reaching and his hand skimmed over the layered coils of the obsidian beads, braided silver and Brunnera's hair looped around his wrist. For a moment his honey colored eyes flared molten gold as he tugged familiar magics to himself and two Echos pulled from the shadows up to flank Verin on either side. 

Turning back towards Deirta, the Echo Knight actually drew a large dagger from a sheath strapped to his hip. Her eyes widened further and she took a step backwards. 

"Verin! How dare-" She snapped sharply but the Echo Knight cut her off, pressing closer and forcing the older drow woman to back up. She lifted her hands defensively, gathering a Dunamantic cantrip into her palms but held it back.

"No, Mother. There is no argument here. Nothing to be said between us. What I would say I cannot articulate. But I can say that I certainly do not think that Leylas or Quana would appreciate hearing _any_ slanderous talk about a champion of the Dynasty. A soldier, who escaped bondage in the far west so much like they and our ancestors did in the Underdark. Who came bearing a part of the lost Luxon. Who brought us victory on the the border then without hesitation nearly sacrificed himself to save the Bright Queen from an assassination attempt and less than a few weeks later helped broker peace for our nation. The _animal_ you so easily speak of when he is not here to defend himself."

As he spoke Deirta's face paled a bit, reading the deadly implication in Verin's tone that she had likely heard many times from peers but never before from her youngest son. The threat left hanging unsaid between them. The cantrip in her hands died even as she backed away from the Echo Knight, Verin steadily closing the distance and his Echos crowding in on either side with him. 

Verin snorted. " _ **Get. Out.**_ "

Deirta hesitated, then seemed to give herself a moment to gather her composure before turning and sweeping her way swiftly out of the foyer, the door yanking open under her hand with more force than she seemed to give it before she was through and striding down the path away from the towers. Verin slid the blade back into the sheath on his hip and stepped up to the door left swinging in her wake. He quietly pushed it closed with far more composure than he felt. He let go of the tenuous hold he had on the Dunamantic magic and his Echos faded into nothing. 

The Echo Knight leaned forwards, letting his forehead thump against the door. He let out a long shuddering breath. 

" _Are you insane?!_ "

Verin whipped around, instantly going for the knife again and pressing his back to the door. He only relaxed when he recognized Essek staring at him from the center of the room. 

"Where the hell did you go!? Did you turn invisible!?" Verin snapped. 

"You just _threatened_ her! To her _face_! To go to the _Queen_!" The Shadowhand rasped.

Verin groaned, pressing his face into his hands, curling his body a bit. 

"Why did you summon Echos?" 

"I DON'T KNOW! The last five minutes are a fucking blur, Essek! I genuinely thought we were going to fight and it made sense when I did it! Shut up, you weren't there!" 

Essek fell silent, he seemed to be studying Verin. Reading or seeing something he hadn't before. "... you told her to 'fuck off'." 

Verin cursed softly in Undercommon, grinding the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, he heaved a deep breath and shook himself then shouldered passed Essek towards the kitchen. "I need to lie down." 

"In the kit-" 

"I'm getting the wine, Essek. I'm drinking the damn wine." Verin snapped, twisting and glaring at the Shadowhand. "And next time don't leave me like that. I know we're still figuring out how to do this stuff but be a big brother, don't disappear again. Please." 

Essek's eyes skipped away, his shoulders hunching just a bit. Verin watched him for another moment before turning and making the rest of the way into the kitchen to get the bottle of wine. 

**Author's Note:**

> Alot of tension going on in ol' Den Thelyss...


End file.
